II Questions and Answers 

COVERING 

THE HISTORY OF 

RUSSIA 



AND THE CAUSES OF THE 
WORLD WAR 




BY 



PROF. JAMES B. TAYLOR, A. M, 

Head of History Department in Huntington School 
Northeastern College 



SUPPLEMENTARY TO 

THE WORLD'S HISTORY AT A GLANCE 



THE BALL PUBLISHING COMPANY 

BOSTON, MASS. 




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Questions and Answers 



COVERING 



THE HISTORY OF 

RUSSIA 



AND THE CAUSES OF THE 
WORLD WAR 

BY 

PROF. JAMES B. TAYLOR, A. M. 

Head of History Department in Huntington School 
Northeastern College 



SUPPLEMENTARY TO 

THE WORLD'S HISTORY AT A GLANCE 



THE BALL PUBLISHING COMPANY 

BOSTON, MASS. 




Copyright, 1917, by The Ball Publishing Company 



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Russia 

The Russian empire comprises one-seventh of the land 
surface of the globe, its area being, since the Treaty of 
Portsmouth (September 5, 1905), and making no allow- 
ance for territory captured and occupied by the forces 
of the central powers in the existing war, 8,417,118 English 
square miles, of which 2,122,999 square miles are located 
in Europe (including Russian Poland and Ciscaucasian 
provinces and Finland); and 6,294,119 square miles in 
Asia, nearly five million square miles of the Asiatic ter- 
ritory being comprised in Siberia. These totals do not 
include the area covered by the internal waters of the 
empire, the seas of Azov, Caspian, Lake Aral, etc., 
occupying an additional 347,468 square miles. The 
total population of this territory, estimated on the basis 
of the census of 1897 and the yearly increase thereby shown, 
was about 178,000,000 inhabitants. 

The government of Russia, which from the beginning 
of its history has been an absolute despotism, since 1905 
has become a constitutional hereditary monarchy, although 
as a matter of fact the legislative, executive and judicial 
power still remain vested to a very large extent in the 
emperor or tsar, who still retains his ancient title " Auto- 
crat of all the Russias." The first step toward establish- 
ing a representative form of government was taken on 
August 6 (19) 1905*; an elective body called the State 
Duma was created but with only consultative power. 
On October 17 (30) of the same year, legislative power was 
conferred upon the Duma and it was provided that no 

'Russia under the domination of the Greek church has never adopted 
the Gregorian reformation of the calendar. All official dates therefore 
are old style, now thirteen days earlier than our chronology. 



4 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

law should be effective without its approval and that of 
the Council of the Empire, a body originally established 
in 1810, and which was a few months later made a legis- 
lative council. The tsar also promulgated the principles 
of freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and association 
and of the inviolability of the person. 

The reigning emperor, Nicholas II, whose official title 
is Tsar and Autocrat of all the Russias, was born May 6 
(19), 1868, the eldest son of the Tsar Alexander III and 
the Empress Maria Feodorovna (Princess Dagmar of 
Denmark), and succeeded to the throne on the death of 
his father October 20 (November 2), 1894. He was 
married in 1894 to Princess Alexandra Alix (born 1872), 
daughter of Ludwig IV Grand Duke of Hesse and Princess 
Alice of England. The heir to the throne is their only 
son the tsarevitch (Crown Prince), the Grand Duke 
Alexis born July 30 (August 12), 1904. The Emperor has 
also four daughters; the tsarevitch being the youngest 
of the imperial children. 

The reigning family of Russia descends in the female 
line from Michael Romanoff who was elected tsar in 1613 
after the extinction of the ancient house of Rurik which 
had ruled Russia since 862. In the male line the tsar's 
lineage is derived from the Duke Karl Friedrich of Hol- 
stein Gottorp who married Anne, daughter of Peter the 
Great. On the maternal side the Tsar Nicholas II is 
first cousin to Kings George V of England, Constantine of 
Greece, Haakon VII of Norway, and Christian X of 
Denmark. The tsarina, also through her mother, is 
related in the same degree to King George V, Kaiser 
Wilhelm II, and the queens of Greece, Norway, Spain 
and Roumania. 

The tsar, as owner of the crown domains consisting 
of more than a million square miles of land and forests, 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 5 

besides gold and other mines in Siberia, possesses an 
immense revenue supposed by some authorities to make 
him the richest man in the world, but the amount of his 
income is unknown, as these crown possessions are con- 
sidered the private property of the imperial family and 
are never referred to in any of the budgets. 

The Duma, which now consists of deputies elected for 
five years, represents the various governments or prov- 
inces of the empire and the cities of Petrograd (formerly 
St. Petersburg), Moscow, Warsaw, Kiev, Lodz, Odessa 
and Riga. The deputies are indirectly elected, being 
chosen by electoral bodies of each of the provinces and 
largest cities, delegates to these bodies being named by 
the district or town elective assemblies. Lodgers of twelve 
months' residence and state, municipal, or railway sal- 
aried clerks may vote in town assemblies; and land- 
owners (the amount of land varying in different districts) 
and owners of non-industrial estates of more than 50,000 
roubles ($26,000) are electors in country provinces. 
Peasant communities and manufactories of more than 
fifty operatives are represented by delegates two for each 
community and one for each thousand workmen. Stu- 
dents, soldiers, governors of provinces and police officers 
may not vote. , 

The members of the Duma have a salary of ten roubles 
($5.20) per day during sessions, with travelling expenses 
to Petrograd and return once a year. The first two 
Dumas were dissolved by the government after sessions 
of only a few months. The third sat from November 1 
(14), 1907, till the expiration of its terms in 1912, when 
the present, the fourth Duma began. Its composition 
in 1915 was: Right, 61; Nationalists, 86; Octobrists, 85; 
Progressives, 41; Constitutional Democrats, 55; Traivail- 
listes (Labor), 11; Social Democrats, 12; Poles, 13; Inde- 
pendents, 19. Total, 383. 



6 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

The Council of the Empire is composed of an equal 
number of elective and appointed members, the former 
comprising one member each, chosen by the various district 
assemblies (zemstvos) of each government, six members 
chosen by the Synod of the Orthodox (Greek) church, 
six by the Academy of Sciences and the Universities, 
twelve by the Bourses, eighteen by the Nobility and six 
by the landed proprietors of Poland; the appointed mem- 
bers are nominated by the tsar. All members must be 
at least forty years of age and have an academical degree. 
The elective members have a salary of twenty-five roubles 
($13) per day during sessions. They are chosen for a 
term of nine years, one-third of the number being elected 
every three years. The President and Vice-President of 
the Council are appointed by the tsar. 

The legislative and initiative powers of the Duma and 
the Council of the Empire are equal and no measure not 
passed by both can be laid before the tsar for imperial 
sanction. Both bodies sit publicly and each can annul 
the election of any of its Own members. A bill rejected 
by the tsar cannot be brought forward again during the 
same session nor can a bill rejected by either body be 
revived without imperial consent. In view of the past 
rigorous repression of free speech, it is interesting to note 
that members of both chambers have personal immunity 
during sessions, being liable to arrest (except for flagrant 
offences or malfeasance), only with permission of their 
respective chamber itself. 

The general administration of government in Russia 
is still entrusted to great boards or councils, the three 
most important of which are: 

I. The Ruling Senate whose functions are partly 

deliberative, partly executive, and which also is the 

high court of justice for the empire. It is divided into 



HISTORY OPi RUSSIA 7 

4 

six departments, each a court of last resort upon its 
special nature of cases. This body was established by 
Peter the Great in 1711. Its promulgation is essential 
to render valid any law. 

II. The Holy Synod, a college also established by 
Peter the Great, in 1721, superintending the religious 
affairs of the empire. All the decisions of the Holy 
Synod are made in the name of the Tsar and require his 
approval. The college is composed of the metropolitans 
of Petrograd (who is also its president), Moscow and 
Kiev ; the Archbishop of Georgia (Caucasus) and a num - 
ber of bishops who take turns in sitting. 

III. The Council of Ministers. This board is the 
most important of all the council since 1905, when it 
was reorganized in accordance with the provisions for 
constitutional government. It consists of all the 
ministers and the general directors of the most important 
administrations, including in 1916 the following port- 
folios: 1. Imperial House and Domains; 2. Foreign 
Affairs; 3. War; 4. Navy; 5. Interior; 6. Public In- 
struction; 7. Finance; 8. Justice; 9. Agriculture; 10. 
Ways of Communications ; 11. Commerce and Industry; 
12. The Controller- General; 13. The Procurator- General 
of the Holy Synod. 

Beyond the above boards the tsar has two private cabi- 
nets; one for charitable affairs and one for the public 
instruction of girls, administering institutions established 
by the Empress Maria (wife of Paul I). Another cabinet 
receives petitions to the tsar, and there is also a special 
imperial cabinet in three sections for public economy; 
mines and manufactures, and legislation. 

The Grand Duchy of Finland, which was ceded to Russia 
in 1809, has preserved by special grant of Alexander I, 
renewed by his successors, its Swedish Constitution of 1722 



8 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

with some subsequent modifications and reforms. Its 
national parliament, reformed in 1905, consists of one 
chamber of two hundred members chosen by direct pro- 
portional election. The suffrage is practically universal, 
men and -women being equally allowed to vote. The 
tsar is Grand Duke of Finland and the government is 
-responsible to him as well as to the Diet, but the Diet 
can decide on any motion not affecting fundamental 
laws or the organization of national defense. 

Poland, which had its own separate government until 
1864, was at that date deprived of the last remnant of its 
administrative independence and from that period a 
consistent effort has been made to entirely amalgamate 
the country with Russia, even the use of the Polish lan- 
guage for public purposes being prohibited. The whole of 
Russian Poland is, however, now (1917) in Austro-German 
occupation and has been declared to be a separate king- 
dom. This proclamation during the pendency of the war 
has not yet received the recognition of other nations. 

In local government the Russian Empire is divided into 
78 governments and 21 provinces; these being subdivided 
into from 5 to 15 districts or circuits, of which there are 
altogether 815 in the Russian Empire. Some of the 
governments or provinces are united into general govern- 
ments under a governor-general, who, as representative 
of the tsar, has supreme control over both civil and military 
affairs. Tn Siberia each governor-general is assisted by 
a deliberative council. A civil governor assisted by a 
council of regency to which all measures must be submitted 
rules over each government, and each of the 21 provinces 
is under a military governor. Special governors rule 
over the townships of Petrograd, Moscow, Sebastopol, 
Odessa, Kerch, Nikolayev, Baku and Rostov on Don, 
while Kronstadt has its own military governor. 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 9 

In European Russia the lands of the peasantry and 
indeed a good part of the local administration of the com- 
munities are administered very democratically, the 
peasants of villages choosing delegates (one man to every 
ten houses) who elect an elder as an executive officer for 
the cantonal assemblies. The whole country is divided 
into 17,075 cantons. Each village also, at a communal 
assembly of all its householders, elects its local elder and 
a tax collector and all communal matters are decided by 
this assembly of actual householders of the community. 
There are also in each government, special colleges for 
peasants' affairs to which communal or cantonal institu- 
tions may be submitted. In Poland the administration 
is somewhat . different, as the assemblies consist solely of 
landowners, though each landowner has an equal vote 
whatever the amount of his real estate. The adminis- 
trations of district and province economical affairs are 
largely in the hands of the zemstvo or district assembly. 
Towns and cities have their own municipal institutions 
organized similarly to the zemstvos. Householders are 
divided into three classes, each of which represents an 
equal amount of property; each class elects an equal 
number of representatives to the Dumas, and each Duma 
elects its own executive. Since 1892 the powers of muni- 
cipal government have been largely placed in the hands 
of the governors appointed by the tsar. 

The established religion of the Russian empire is the 
Graeco-Russian which is officially called the Orthodox 
faith. Although it is independent, the tsar being the 
head of the church appointing every official thereof, it 
maintains the relation of a sister church with the Ortho- 
dox Greek Catholic patriarchates of Constantinople, 
Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. As the tsar has 
never claimed the right of decision in theological questions, 



10 HISTORY OP RUSSIA 

the Procurator of the Holy Synod really controls all church 
matters except appointments and dismissals of officials. 
Although with the exception of restraints law upon Jews, 
freedom of worship is promised to all religions, as a matter 
of fact dissenters still are subjected to severe repressions. 
While there are no very trustworthy statistics as to the 
religious faith of the population, the census of 1897 
divided a total of 125,000,000 as follows: Orthodox Greek 
United Church, 87,000,000; Mohammedans, 14,000,000; 
Roman Catholics, 11,000,000; Jews, 5,000,000; Dissent- 
ing Christians, 7,000,000; Buddhists and other non- 
Christians less than one million. 

Most of the schools in the Russian Empire are under 
the control of the ministry of public instruction; the empire 
being divided into fifteen educational districts. The two 
largest universities are at Petrograd (7442 students), 
and at Moscow (9892 students). Seven other cities have 
universities with an aggregate of 21,693 students accord- 
ing to the reports issued January 1, 1914. These totals 
do not include the University of Finland at Helvingford 
with 3438 students, and there is also a popular university 
founded and endowed by General Alphonse Shaniavsky 
which has existed at Moscow since 1908. Nearly 4000 
students in Russia are either supported by bursaries or 
excused from paying fees. There are also a number 
of institutions for special education, theological, medical, 
legal, technical and oriental languages. 

According to the last issue of the Year Book of Russia 
(1914), the number of schools including primary, special, 
middle and high schools and the total number of pupils 
attending them were as follows: 

European Russia 95,381 schools with 6,151,538 scholars 

Poland 7,022 schools with 339,003 scholars 

Ciscaucasia 2,635 schools with 177,877 scholars 

Transcaucasia 2,548 schools with 145,031 scholars 

Siberia 6,245 schools with 341,217 scholars 

Central Asia 8,693 schools with . 111,974 scholars 

Total 122,524~ 7,266,694 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 11 

To the above total must be added pupils of private and 
religious schools not classed in these categories amounting 
to 771,415, so that the total number attending the schools 
of the Russian Empire exclusive of Finland was 8,038,109. 
In Finland, according to reports of the same year, there 
were of the various schools classed in the foregoing state- 
ment 3442 schools with 293,745 students and 317 other 
schools for various trade or technical study with 11,802 
students. 

In spite of all these institutions it is quite apparent, 
from figures furnished by the statistical annual for 1913, 
that elementary education is only poorly developed, since 
out of every one hundred persons up to nine years of age 
seventy-three were unable to read and write. In regard 
to the population generally, the less illiterate provinces 
of European Russia show the following percentages of 
illiteracy: Esthonia, 20.1 per cent; Livonia, 22.3 per cent; 
Courland, 29.1 per cent; Petrograd, 44.9 per cent. 

In national defense the extensive frontier jf the Russian 
Empire both by sea and by land is protected by numerous 
fortifications of various classes. Of fortresses of the first 
class, there are three on the Polish , frontier and one in 
the Vilna district. The second-class fortifications are 
six in number, including Kronstadt and Sveaborg in the 
Petrograd and Finland district and Vladivostok in the 
Amur district. There are seven fortresses of the third 
class and about forty-six unclassed fortifications, many of 
these being mere fortified posts. 

Military service in Russia is universal and compulsory, 
beginning at the age of twenty and completed in the 
forty-third year. The troops are divided into three 
armies, those of European Russia, the Caucasus, and 
Asiatic Russia. These armies, practically distinct from 
each other, have slightly varying terms of service. A very 



12 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

important branch of the Russian army is the Cossack 
cavalry. The Cossacks, who occupy the south-western 
portion of European Russia, hold their lands by military 
tenure and are liable to service for life. They provide 
their own horses and equipment and their military train- 
ing begins at the age of nineteen. Invited to service 
from their early years, and being born horsemen, they form 
a unique body of troops which has been of enormous 
aid in all military operations. 

The troops of the Russian Empire are so far territorial- 
ized that each corps draws its recruits from a particular 
district and is as a rule permanently quartered in the same 
garrison. But a number of the recruits from " Great 
Russia " are sent to corps outside, and as in European 
Russia the bulk of the army is stationed west of Moscow, 
a majority of the recruits and reservists have to travel 
long distances to join their corps. This makes mobili- 
zation a slower and more difficult process than in France 
or Germany. The peace strength of the armies of Russia 
is upwards of 1,300,000. The field armies of European 
Russia and the Caucasus with the reserve divisions and 
the second category regiments of the Don and Caucasian 
Cossacks probably amount to 7,000,000 men. In the 
Asiatic army the men are Russians with the exception 
of a few Turkoman irregular horse. In Siberia the 
troops are mainly recruited from military colonists. But 
the largest part of the Asiatic army is in East Siberia, 
which possesses a strong army of its own, reorganized 
and increased since the Russo-Japanese War, the whole 
of which mobilizes as five army corps with from two to 
four Cossack cavalry divisions. 

The Russian navy has been subject to special conditions 
different from those of the navies of the other powers. 
Owing to the widely separated seas which wash the coasts 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 13 

of the empire it has been obliged to maintain four distinct 
fleets, one each for the Baltic, Black Sea, Caspian Sea 
and the Pacific. In western relations, the most important 
of these is the Baltic fleet, and, as the Gulf of Finland is 
usually blocked with ice from November to April, a new 
ice-free port has been made ready at Libau in Courland, 
although this port was taken by the Germans in 1915. 
Another port is contemplated on the coast of Russian 
Lapland which is free from ice all the year but its dis- 
tance from probable fields of operation would make this 
of slight advantage. Great progress has, however, been 
made with ice breaking vessels, which goes far toward 
making the Baltic fleet more effective. During the 
progress of the war thus far the Russian fleet, though 
inferior in numbers to the German fleet, has proved uni- 
versally successful in its operations in the Baltic. In 
the Black Sea, although the commanding power fell to 
the Turks after their purchase of the German cruisers 
Goeben and Breslau, the injuries received by the former 
caused the command of the sea to pass again to the 
Russians. The following is a statement of the strength 
of the Russian fleet in 1915, including ships building but 
excluding training ships and transports and also excluding 
the gunboats which form the Caspian flotilla. 





Baltic 
Fleet 


Black Sea 
Fleet 


Pacific 
Fleet 


Total 


Dreadnaughts 


4 


2 


- 


6 


Pre-dread aughts 


4 


4 


- 


8 


Armored cruisers 


3 


- 


' - 


3 


Protected cruisers 


7 


2 


1 


10 


Destroyers 


85 


26 


6 


117 


Submarines 


22 


11 


8 


41 



14 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

Questions and Answers 

1. How large is Russia? 

Ans. Russia extends from the Black Sea to the Arctic 
Ocean and from the Baltic, in the north of Europe, to 
the North Pacific east of Asia. It occupies about one- 
seventh of the land surface of the globe or considerably over 
8,000,000 square miles. 

2. How does Russia's area correspond to that of the 
United States and other great nations? 

Ans. The area of the United States possessions is a 
little over three and a half million square miles or con- 
siderably less than half the size of Russia. China is 
considerably larger than the United States, but only 
half the size of Russia, while the British Empire, " on which 
the sun never sets," is Russia's only superior in size, 
having about 12,000,000 square miles, but this is com- 
posed of territories scattered all over the world, so that 
Russia is easily the largest consolidated empire that exists. 

3. What is the population of Russia? 

Ans. The Russian population is estimated at 160 odd 
millions by the last decennial census; considerably more 
today — perhaps nearly 200,000,000. 

4. How does the Russian population compare with 
that of the United States and other large countries? 

Ans. The* population of Russia is only surpassed by 
that of India, which in 1911 was over 315,000,000, and that 
of China, estimated at 450,000,000. The population of 
the United States is over 100,000,000. 

5. In size and population where does Russia stand? 

Ans. In size it is next to the British Empire or second 
in the world; in population third, or next_to China and 
India. It has the largest resources of any nation from 
which to draw for soldiers and more territory in Europe 
to draw from than any other country there. 

6. When does Russia first appear in history? 

Ans. A little over five hundred years B.C., Darius, 
third king of Persia, crossed the Bosphorus with, it is 
said, more than seven hundred thousand men by means 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 15 

of pontoon bridges and, crossing the Danube in a similar 
way, invaded what is now Russia but then known only 
as the home of Scythian hordes. 

7. When did the modern Russia begin? 

Ans. In 862 A.D., Rurik, a Scandinavian chieftain 
from Sweden, crossed the Baltic eastward and, either 
by conquest or after invitation of Slavonian tribes to 
defend them against Finns and Lithuanians, acquired 
territory and kingly dignity, and founded the first royal 
house of Russia at about the time that Egbert, first king 
of the English, began to rule, 828. 

8. What is the origin of the name "Russia"? 

Ans. The origin of the name "Russia" is uncertain. 
Some say it was borrowed from some Scandinavian lo- 
calit}^ (as Russ, the home of Rurik) or, as Arabs say, from 
territory on the Dnieper; or again, from the name given 
by the Finns to the foreigners, the Scandinavian Corsairs. 

9. Of what race were the natives of Russia whom the 
Scandinavians captured? 

Ans. Russians are of the Slavic race, a race that from 
the most ancient times pressed on the Teutons of Central 
Europe as the Teutons pressed on the Celts toward the 
west of Europe. 

10. What other nations do the Slavs include? 

Ans. The Slavs (or Sclavs or Slaves), include the 
Bulgarians, Ruthenians, Poles, Serbs, Croats, Wends or 
Sorbs, Slovaks, Czechs or Bohemians, Slovenes, and a 
few others. 

11. What is the meaning of the word "Slav"? 

Ans. Some think the form "Slave," which is sometimes 
used, points to those in bondage to the Tartars, but more 
properly the word in the Slavic languages means intelli- 
gible, as distinguishing their various tribes; intelligible 
to one another, in contrast to those they called bar- 
barians, as the Tartars. It recalls curiously by contrast 
the word " barbarians " given by the Greeks to those who 
were unintelligible to them. 



16 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

12. Which are supposed to be the oldest tribes of Slavs 
and where did they live? 

Ans. The earliest historical notices of the Slavs repre- 
sent them as having their homes about the Carpathian 
Mountains, and to have been called Winds or Wends or 
Serbs, but they were probably far more widely spread 
through eastern Europe. 

13. What were the boundaries of the Slavs in the 
ninth century when Rurik established the first line of 
Russian kings? 

Ans. In 814, when Charlemagne died after consolidat- 
ing the Western Roman Empire of Prance, Germany 
and Italy, the Slavs occupied territory directly south of 
Sweden, close up to Hamburg. Bohemia and Austria 
were much smaller then and Prussia belonged to the 
Slavs. 

14. What were the fortunes, briefly told, of Rurik's 
dynasty? 

Ans. For several centuries the Scandinavian dynasty 
established by Rurik succeeded in its Russian domain. 
They built new forts, and took part in wars. The times 
of " Sunny Vladimir " (980 to 1015), is the heroic epoch 
of early Russian history; Vladimir feasts and feats are 
handed down in song and legend, and his conversion to 
Christianity made him the hero of monkish annals. In 
the eleventh century, Kiev was in its glory, " the mother 
of the Russian towns." Yaroslav the Wise was grand 
prince there; the great Cathedral of St. Sophia was built, 
schools were opened and the first written Russian laws 
compiled. Russia spread toward the east on the Oka and 
the Danube and to the northeast among the Finns. 

15. What calamity overwhelmed the royal house of 
Russia founded by Rurik in 862? 

Ans. In the thirteenth century fierce Tartar tribes 
from Asia overran and conquered Russia, inflicted horrible 
atrocities and held the Russian princes for over two 
hundred years in servile bondage, forcing them to pay 
tribute and also to do homage by kissing the stirrup of the 
Tartar chief. This delayed the nationalization of Slavon- 
ian peoples for centuries. 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 17 

16. When was Russia freed from the Tartar or Mongol 
rule? 

Ans. Ivan III, called the Great, reorganized Russia 
with Moscow as a center (hence the term Muscovy for 
Russia), and after a terrible struggle expelled the Tartars 
in 1480, when Russia began to assume for the first time 
the character of a well-consolidated empire. 

17. What was the situation in Russia at the time of 
Ivan or at the beginning of reorganized Russia? 

Ans. When Ivan the Great died in 1505, Russia was 
hemmed in. The Tartars were between her and both 
the Black and Caspian Seas; the Swedes and other people 
shut her off from the Baltic and the Poles and Lithuanians 
were between her and Germany. 

18. When was Russia Christianized? 

Ans. The conversion of Russia dates from the close 
of the tenth century. Missionaries of the Greek Church 
from Constantinople effected its evangelization. Some 
of the eastern Slav tribes received Christianity at the hands 
of Cyril as early as the ninth century, while the more 
western tribes were converted by Roman and German 
missionaries and still belong to the Roman Catholic church. 
Russia, however, is well known to be the leading repre- 
sentative of the Greek Catholic church. 

19. Who was Cyril? 

Ans. Cyril and Methodius, apostles to the Slavs, 
were brothers and natives of Thessalonica. Cyril was 
the name adopted as a monk by one Constantine, born 
827, surnamed the Philosopher. A Tartar people, the 
Khasars, living northeast of the Black Sea toward the 
lower Volga, asked the emperor, Michael III, about 860, 
for missionaries, and Cyril was sent and made many 
converts. His brother Methodius evangelized the Bul- 
garians in Thrace and Mcesia and baptized their king, 
861. At the request of Ratislav, Duke of Moravia, the 
brothers then turned their attention to the countries on 
the March and Danube. 

20. What more did Cyril and Methodius do for the 
Slavs? 

Ans. The brothers prepared a Slav translation of the 
Scriptures and also liturgical books which became the 



18 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

foundation of Slav literature and won the hearts of the 
people from the Roman missionaries. The brothers were 
summoned to Rome to explain their conduct and Cyril 
died in Rome, 869, but Methodius was consecrated 
bishop of the Moravians in the same year and completed 
the evangelization of the Slavs. He was called to Rome 
in 879 to justify his celebration of the mass in the native 
tongue, and succeeded in gaining the approval of Pope 
John VIII. He died in 885. On July 5, 1863, Bohemia 
and Moravia celebrated the millenary festival of their 
two apostles. Both are recognized as saints by the Roman 
church. 

21. Where did Cyril get his alphabet for his translation 
of the Scriptures into the Slav tongue? 

Ans. The Cyrillic alphabet was modified out of the 
Greek and superseded the older Slavonic alphabet over a 
wide area. 

22. After the Tartar yoke was broken in 1480, how did 
Russia prosper under Ivan the Great and his successors? 

Ans. The reigns of Ivan III, called the Great, his son 
Basil and his grandson Ivan the Terrible covered a period 
of one hundred and twenty-two years. During this 
time there was much fighting with Lithuanians, then 
united with Poland. Lithuania was near Moscow, and 
its inhabitants employed Tartars against the Russians, 
but Ivan IV, surnamed the Terrible, made great headway 
against them. Siberia was conquered by Cossacks, 
originally inhabitants of Little Russia, but developed 
historically into a separate race from which a great fighting 
force of Russia's army has been developed. It was in 
this reign also that the English began to trade by sea with 
Archangel on the White Sea. 

23. What extraordinary case of fraud was perpetrated 
on the Russians near the beginning of the seventeenth 
century? 

Ans. Feodor, the son of Ivan the Terrible, was driven 
into exile by one Boris Godunov, who led a rival faction 
of the people. He also sent assassins to murder the seven- 
year-old child, Dmitri, next heir to the throne, in 1591. 
Godunov was proclaimed tsar, 1598, after Feodor 's 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 19 

death in exile. A young man later appeared in Poland 
claiming to be Dmitri. All over Russia the people rose 
to support him, the mother of Dmitri recognized him 
as her son and on the sudden death of Godunov he was 
proclaimed tsar and crowned at Moscow, 1605. 

24. For how long was the fraud successful? 

Ans. The Russians did not find the false Dmitri to 
be what they expected. He proved to be a mere tool in 
the hands of the Poles. A revolt was started and the im- 
poster was murdered in 1606. 

25. What happened next in Russia after the murder 
of the pretender, Dmitri? 

Ans. Sigismund of Poland took advantage of the 
confusion in Russia, invaded it and took possession of 
Moscow, 1610. 

26. What was the outcome of the attempt of the Polish 
king to seize the throne of Russia? 

Ans. Minin, a butcher of Nijni Novgorod, and Pojarski, 
a country squire, formed a national party and secured the 
aid of the Cossack army. The Poles were driven out of 
Moscow and the people then elected Mikhael Romanoff 
to be their tsar- in 1613. He came of a family that had 
migrated to Russia from Prussia several generations 
before and had become very popular; his grandmother 
had been the wife of Ivan IV, the Terrible. After a hard, 
uncertain struggle against Poland, in which the very exis- 
tence of Russia was threatened, the Cossacks turned the tide 
of battle and the new line became firmly established upon 
the throne. 

27. Who was the immediate successor of the first 
Romanoff? 

Ans. Alexis, the son of Mikhael Romanoff, succeeding 
his father in 1645, continued the work of modeling Russia 
into a state and entirely reformed the local administration. 
A great secession in the church took place when Nikon, 
the patriarch, tried to correct the books used in the 
Russian church, but was forced to resign by the revolt 
of the people. The mastery of Poland was established 
but, in order to maintain her rights on the Dnieper, Russia 



20 HISTORY OP RUSSIA 

had to undertake a war with Turkey which outlasted 
Alexis' reign, (1645-76.) Turkey yielded all claims to Little 
Russia in 1681. 

28. What is meant by "Little Russia"? 

Ans. The population of the Russian Empire embraces 
a great variety of nationalities, but the Great Russians, 
the Little Russians and the White Russians comprise 
about ninety million or more than half of the inhabitants 
of Russia. The Great Russians inhabit middle Russia 
and comprise two-thirds of the people in eastern and 
northern Russia. Little Russia is farther south than 
Great Russia and Kiev and Volhynia on the spurs of the 
Carpathians mark its location. It is the richest and most 
populous part of Russia. The soil is rich and black, 
yielding fine crops of wheat and sugar beet. Cattle and 
sheep breeding are prosecuted on a large scale on the 
prairies, while Kiev is one -of the chief industrial centers 
of Russia. 

29. What happened when Feodor, grandson of Mikhael 
Romanoff, under whom peace was made with Turkey, 
died? 

Ans. After Feodor's death in 1682, his brother, Ivan 
V, nominally succeeded but, he being feeble-minded, the 
States-General chose his half brother, Peter, as tsar, and 
Peter's half sister Sophia, an able and ambitious princess, 
succeeded in obtaining the reins of government as princess 
regent. 

30. What was the nature of the rule of Princess Regent 
Sophia, during the boyhood of Peter the Great? 

Ans. Sophia concluded peace with Poland in 1686 
and made two campaigns against the Tartars of the 
Crimea. After unsuccessfully attempting to deprive Peter 
of his right to the throne, she tried to assassinate him and 
his mother but, failing in this, she was forced- to retire 
to a convent. Nearly a thousand of her accomplices were 
executed. 

31. When did Peter the Great come into power? 

Ans. In 1689, the year after the great revolution in 
England that expelled the Stuart kings and established 
the will of the people, Peter ascended the throne of all 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 21 

the^Russias, a boy of seventeen, who was destined to make 
history for forty years to a degree very few have succeeded 
in rivaling. 

32. What kind of a boyhood did Peter enjoy? 

Ans. His elder half sister, to suit her selfish aims, 
had held him in the bondage of vice and ignorance. He 
was wholly without education. He was encouraged in 
drunkenness, gluttony, and every degrading form of self- 
indulgence, but the energy of his nature soon surmounted 
the disadvantages of his youth. 

33. To what activities did Peter the Great address 
himself on ascending the throne in 1689 at the age of 
seventeen? 

Ans. Peter early realized the vast inferiority of* Russia 
to the western nations of Europe. He felt the need of an 
army and a fleet. Russia had no marine commerce; 
there was no word for fleet in the language. Archangel, 
the only seaport in the country, was frozen up seven months 
out of the twelve. The empire must have outlets upon 
the sea. Hence Peter's first aim was to wrest the southern 
Baltic shore from Sweden and the Black Sea from Turkey. 

34. What degree of success did Peter obtain in trying 
to reach the sea? 

Ans. In 1695, he declared war against Turkey and 
sailed down the Don to attack Azov, the key to the Black 
Sea, but was unsuccessful. The next year, however, he 
tried again and gained his first harbor on the south, 
Azov. 

35. Having won a desirable harbor on the Black Sea, 
what was Peter's next step? 

Ans. Having obtained a harbor, Peter next craved 
ships, a native marine, but he had no shipbuilders. He 
sent a large number of young Russian nobles to Italy, 
Holland and England to acquire a knowledge of naval 
affairs, forbidding them to return until they had become 
good sailors. Not satisfied with that, he left the govern- 
ment in the hands of three nobles and set out himself to 
learn the secrets of shipbuilding. 



22 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

36. What were Peter the Great's experiences in going 
abroad to learn shipbuilding? 

Ans. He first went to Holland and at Zaandam hired 
out as a common laborer to a Dutch shipbuilder. Then 
he went to England and there learned more. 

37. Was Peter the Great's identity known when he 
worked as a carpenter in Holland and England? 

Ans. Peter traveled incognito, but it was well known 
who he was. His terrible energy was enough to distinguish 
him from the phlegmatic Hollanders. To avoid publicity, 
he went to Amsterdam to the docks of the East India 
Company, which was building a frigate, that he might 
watch the whole process of constructing a vessel from the 
start. Here he worked for four months. 

38. • How did Peter happen to go to England also? 

Ans. At this time, 1697, William of Orange, ruling 
Prince of the Netherlands, was also King of England, and 
he invited Peter over there and presented him with a 
splendid full-armed yacht and arranged a mock sea fight 
for his distinguished guest. 

39. Did Peter acquire useful knowledge outside of 
shipbuilding? 

Ans. Peter interested himself not only in naval ar- 
chitecture but in almost everything else. He attended 
lectures on anatomy; studied surgery; acquired skill in 
pulling teeth and in bleeding; inspected paper mills, flour 
mills, printing presses and factories; visited hospitals, 
cabinets and museums; everything that he deemed of 
value for introduction at home. 

40. What was the nature of Peter's return home? 

Ans. On leaving England, Peter proceeded to Vienna, 
intending to visit Italy, but he heard of rebellion at home, 
and hastened back to quell it, taking skilled artificers 
with him who in a few years helped to place a formidable 
Russian fleet on the Baltic. 

41. What was the rebellion that hurried Peter home? 

Ans. The revolt was among the Strelitzes, a body of 
twenty thousand to thirty thousand soldiers organized 
by Ivan the Terrible as an imperial bodyguard, like the 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 23 

Praetorian guards of Rome. Peter determined to rid 
himself of this insolent, refractory body and substituted 
a force well drilled in western tactics. 

42. What reforms in dress and appearance did Peter 
undertake? 

Ans. So pleased was Peter with western ideas that he 
stationed tailors and barbers at the gates of Moscow to 
trim the beards and cut off the skirts and long sleeves of 
his subjects' Oriental robes. 

43. For what other reforms was Peter responsible? 

Ans. Besides requiring all but the clergy to shave or 
pay a tax on beards, Peter issued a new coinage, intro- 
duced schools, built factories, constructed roads and 
canals, established a postal system, opened mines, framed 
laws after western models and gave the citizens of towns 
some voice in the management of local affairs similar to 
the custom in the Netherlands and England under the 
reign of William III. 

44. What was Peter the Great's success with his army? 

Ans. The army he created was at first so ineffective 
that Charles XII of Sweden with- ten thousand troops 
defeated Peter's army of eighty thousand. " The Swedes 
will have the advantage at first, but they will teach us 
how to beat them," said Peter, a principle which Russia 
seems to have adopted as her own, learning by defeat. 

45. What was the origin of St. Petersburg or Petrograd? 

Ans. Peter decided that Moscow was too far inland 
to be a satisfactory capital for an enterprising nation; so 
with infinite pains he constructed a new city on a marshy 
•island at the mouth of the Neva, where, as he said, he 
could look out upon western Europe as from a window. 
Three hundred thousand men cleared the forests, drained 
the marshes, constructed roads and otherwise prepared 
for the new capital. Inundations destroyed the work, 
epidemics swept away his workmen by thousands, but 
the undaunted tsar kept on and in five months the new 
capital was founded and so fortified that Sweden could 
not destroy it. 



24 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

46. What was Peter's later experience with Charles 

Ans. Charles XII of Sweden, called the Madman of 
the North, was but fifteen when, in 1697, he became 
king on the death of his father. His possessions included 
Finland and large areas along the southern Baltic ter- 
ritory won by the valor of his ancestors. Taking advantage 
of his youth, Frederick IV of Denmark, Augustus the 
Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and Peter 
the Great started in 1700 to annex such parts of Charles' 
southern possessions as they severally desired. 

47. What success did the three rulers have "who pro- 
posed to rob the youthful Charles of Sweden of his pos- 
sessions south of the Baltic? 

_ Ans. Charles made the King of Denmark sue for peace 
in two weeks; struck the Russian army of twenty thousand 
that was besieging Narva on the Gulf of Finland with 
his little army of eight thousand and inflicted an igno- 
minious defeat. Charles then turned south to chastise 
Augustus, while the imperturbable Peter proceeded to 
make himself master of the Swedish land on the Baltic 
and to lay the foundations of St. Petersburg. 

48. Did Charles and Peter have further trouble? 

Ans. After defeating Augustus, King of Poland, and 
obliging him to surrender his crown, 1706, Charles turned 
on Peter and boldly crossed his frontier in 1708 with forty 
thousand men, but his army was practically annihilated 
at Pultowa in 1709, and Charles escaped with only a few 
soldiers. Peter at once seized all the Swedish provinces 
on the Baltic and a part of Finland in the year following. 
In 1713, the whole of Finland was subdued. 

49. What was the nature of Peter's later wars? 

Ans. In 1721, Peter ended his war with Sweden by a 
treaty that confirmed as his all the land he had wrested 
from Sweden. This greatly enhanced Russia's position 
among European nations. Peter then, in 1722, commenced 
war on Persia and secured three provinces on the Caspian 
Sea. 

50. What was the nature of Peter's death? 

Ans. In 1725, two years after his victories over Persia, 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 25 

Peter died of a fever brought on by exposure while aiding 
in the rescue of some sailors in distress in the Gulf of 
Finland. 

51. What was Peter the Great's personal appearance? 

Ans. The portrait of Peter, painted by Kneller, the 
English court painter, in 1698, when Peter was twenty-six, 
represents a strikingly handsome young man with thick, 
black, curly hair and fine, large, intelligent eyes. 

52. What was his character? 

Ans. He had much of the savage left in him. He could 
not only look on while a crowd of defeated insurgents 
were put to death, but even wield the executioner's axe 
himself. He constantly applied his cane to the shoulders 
and heads of those who displeased him. His theory of 
government was a rough, brutal one, but by his strength 
he lifted Russia out of Asiatic barbarism into the social 
ways of Europe. He aimed at autocratic despotism and 
destroyed all checks on the absolute power of the crown, 
but the western ideas he took such pains to introduce were 
bound to foster popular liberty and western civilization. 

53. What is the origin of the word "czar" or "tsar"? 

Ans. "Czar," like "kaiser," is a corruption of "Caesar". 
Those so named regard themselves as successors and 
heirs of the Caesars of Rome and Constantinople, the 
Holy Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. 

54. What final word can be said about Peter? 

Ans. When Peter ascended the throne at seventeen, 
Russia exercised domain over five million square miles 
of the earth's surface, or a great deal more than the rapidly 
developed United States of the present time. Today, less 
than two hundred years since his death and owing quite 
strictly to influences and reforms which he set in full 
operation, Russia controls nearly nine million square miles or 
an added territory larger than the whole of the United 
States or of Europe outside of Russia. No other country 
has expanded equally in that time, unless England with 
India, Canada and Australia. Peter introduced silk and 
woolen manufactures and the art of printing. He estab- 
lished police and a postal system. He framed a code of 
laws based on those of more advanced nations. He founded 



26 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

hospitals and medical schools. He caused arithmetic to 
be used in government offices where accounts had been 
kept by small balls strung on wire. 

55. What family did Peter the Great leave? 

Ans. On Peter's return from western Europe in 1698, 
he divorced the empress, who was suspected of complicity 
in the anti-reform rebellion, and in 1712 he married his 
mistress, Catherine, and transferred the offices of govern- 
ment from Moscow to the new capital on the Neva. 
In 1718 the Crown Prince Alexis, Peter's only son, was 
found guilty of high treason and condemned to death. 
The unhappy tsarevitch died almost immediately after this 
judgment, probably in consequence of the torture he had 
undergone. By Peter's will Catherine succeeded him, but 
the old reactionary party of the nobility supported the 
claims of the only son of Alexis, Peter II, who obtained the 
throne in 1727, two years after Peter's death; but Peter 
II died in 1730, only three years later. The privy council 
set aside descendants of Peter I, and gave the throne 
to Anna, Duchess of Courland, daughter of Ivan V, the 
elder half brother of Peter the Great. 

56. What about Anna's reign? 

Ans. Her reign, 1730-40, was strongly marked by 
the predominance of the German party at court, which 
treated Russia as a great source of plunder. Under German 
influence Russia restored to Persia her lost Caspian prov- 
inces and was led into a disastrous war with Turkey. 
Anna was followed by Ivan VI, the son of her niece; but he 
was speedily deposed by Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the 
Great, who ruled for twenty- one years; she deprived the 
German party of the influence it had so shamefully abused 
and restored the senate to the power it had enjoyed under 
her father. Under Elizabeth, Russia gained a portion 
of Finland and took part in the Seven Year's War between 
England and France, 1756-63. 

57. What happened in European history after Eliza- 
beth's death in 1762? 

Ans. Elizabeth's nephew and successor, Peter III, 
was an admirer of Frederick the Great of Prussia, and his 
first act on ascending the throne in 1762 was to order 
the Russian army, which was supporting Austria against 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 27 

Prussia, to change sides. Prussia and Frederick the Great 
were very fortunate in the change, as Frederick had been 
reduced to his last extremity. But Peter III was disliked 
and his wife Catherine II easily dethroned him and he 
was murdered by her associates, 

58. What sort of a queen and woman was Catherine 
II of Russia? 

Ans. As a woman she was noted for extreme profligacy. 
As a ruler she was one of the strongest that ever occupied 
a throne. She carried on successful wars against Turkey, 
Persia, Sweden and Poland, and thereby greatly extended 
her territory. The first partition of 1 Poland, 1772, helped 
consolidate her empire and the acquisition of the Crimea, 
1783, gave Russia her first firm grip on the Black Sea 
though still barred from the Bosphorus. 

59. What is the story of the dismemberment of Poland? 

Ans. All three partitions of the old kingdom of Poland 
took place during the reign of Catherine II and in all 
three Russia secured her share of the loot. The first 
partition, in 1772, was between Prussia, Austria and Russia, 
or between Frederick the Great, Maria Theresa and 
Catherine. The second partition was in 1793, between 
Prussia and Russia and, finally, in 1795, after the suppres- 
sion of a fierce rebellion led by Kosciusko, who had helped 
the colonists in the American Revolution, a third division 
was made between the three and Poland, as such, was 
erased from the map. Catherine said Poland served as 
a doormat on which she stepped when visiting the west. 

60. Was there any justification in Russia's policy 
toward Poland? 

Ans. According to statecraft and common impulses 
there was provocation and even justification. Poland 
had been the stronger nation once and for over six centuries 
had been in the habit of exploiting Russia. " As ye sow, so 
also shall ye reap," is a law that nations as well as men 
are slow to learn. 

61. Did Catherine II do anything more than wage suc- 
cessful war to aid Russia? 

Ans. Catherine II labored to reform the Russian in- 
stitutions and to civilize her people and she showed en- 



28 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

thusiasm for learning by liberally patronizing literary men. 
At the close of her reign, 1796, Russia was beyond question 
one of the foremost powers of Europe, ready to play her 
part in the titanic struggle of the early nineteenth century. 

62. Did Russia take part in the Napoleonic struggle? 

Ans. Russia played a mighty part in the Napoleonic 
struggle and was the chief agent in causing the downfall 
of the dictator of the continent. 

63. What was the attitude of Russia at the beginning 
of the conflict with France? 

Ans. Catherine II's son, Paul I, who succeeded her in 
1796, through fear of the French Revolution joined the 
Austrians and British against France, but soon after, in 
a weak-minded admiration of Napoleon, withdrew and 
was about to begin war against Britain when he was 
assassinated. He gave freedom of worship to the Old 
Ritualists, but turned free crown peasants into serfs for 
the sake of his favorites. 

64. Who succeeded Paul I, and what policy did he 
pursue? 

Ans. Alexander I, the oldest son of Paul, came to 
the throne at the beginning of the nineteenth century and 
continued through the first quarter of the century, 1801- 
25. At the outset of his reign he favored peace, but 
was soon drawn into the mighty struggle beginning in 
1805, and played a prominent part. He was present at 
Austerlitz where Napoleon won one of his greatest victories 
over Austria and Russia. Next year he entered Prussia 
with aid for King Frederick William III but was completely 
overwhelmed at Friedland and sued for peace. By the 
Treaty of Tilsit he agreed to Napoleon's continental 
system of no trade with England and even attacked her 
ally, Sweden, in 1808. 

65. What was the later action of Alexander? 

Ans. In 1812, the tsar cast aside his ties of alliance and 
friendship for France and entered the coalition against 
her. Napoleon invaded Russia with over five hundred 
thousand troops. The Russian force, numbering three 
hundred thousand, was defeated at Borodino, and Napoleon 
pushed on to Moscow, only to find it deserted and on fire. 



HISTORY OF g [ RUSSIA 29 

66. What effect did the destruction of Moscow by the 
Russians have on Napoleon's victorious career? 

Ans. Instead of the shelter and supplies that Napoleon 
had calculated on, he found himself obliged to retreat 
before approaching winter and suffered enormous losses 
from snow, cold, famine and pursuing, harassing Cossacks. 
Of Napoleon's five hundred thousand that invaded Russia, 
three hundred thousand fell, one hundred thousand were 
made prisoners and only one hundred thousand escaped 
to return toward France. 

67. What was the effect of the failure of the campaign 
against Russia? 

Ans. Encouraged by Napoleon's failure in Russia, a 
sixth coalition was formed against him, which defeated 
him in the Battle of the Nations at Leipsic, 1813, and led 
to Napoleon's abdication. 

68. What part did Alexander, Tsar of Russia, take in 
the settlement of European affairs after Napoleon's 
defeat? 

Ans. At the occupation of Paris after the downfall of 
Napoleon, Alexander was the central figure in politics 
and diplomacy. He visited England at this time and was 
well received. At the Congress of Vienna after the Battle 
of Waterloo, Alexander claimed Poland as essential to 
Russian interests but promised to give it a constitution. 

69. What was the Holy Alliance? 

Ans. After the downfall of Napoleon, Alexander formed 
the celebrated union known as the Holy Alliance, which 
was accepted by all the leading Christian nations except 
Great Britain. 

70. What were the aims of the Holy Alliance? 

Ans. The ostensible object of this league, in which 
Russia took the lead and Austria and Prussia were promi- 
nent, was the maintenance of religion, peace and order 
in Europe, and the reduction to practice in politics of 
the maxims of Christ. The sovereigns involved promised 
to be fathers to their people, to rule in love, and solely 
with reference to the welfare of their people and to help 
one another to prevent wrong. 



30 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

71. How well did the Holy Alliance succeed in carrying 
out its professed_aim of peace, religion[and order through- 
out Europe? 

Ans. Doubtless Alexander of Russia in founding the 
alliance meant what he said, but conspiracies at home 
and uprisings abroad created a revulsion of feeling and, 
from an ardent apostle of reform and liberal ideas, Alexan- 
der became a violent absolutist and spent his later years 
in aiding the despotic rulers of Spain, Italy, and Germany 
to crush every uprising for political freedom. 

72. What bearing did the Holy Alliance have on the 
Monroe Doctrine of the United States? 

Ans. When Mexico and other Central and South 
American States had thrown off the yoke of Spain and 
become independent republics in imitation of the United 
States, it was believed that the Holy Alliance was pur- 
posing to restore her lost colonies to Spain. To check 
and meet this, James Monroe, fifth President of the United 
States, in 1823, with the aid of his able Secretary of State, 
John Quincy Adams, and with the quiet approval of Great 
Britain, issued the famous Monroe Doctrine, that this 
country would regard any interference with an established 
republican form of government on this continent by a 
European power as an unfriendly act. 

73. What was the end of Alexander? 

Ans. Alexander's want of sympathy with the revolt 
in Greece alienated the feeling of his subjects. Troubles 
increased until, weary with governing a vast empire not 
yet ripe for the advanced views which Alexander is be- 
lieved to have cherished, he set out for a journey to the 
Crimea in September, 1825, for his health, and died on the 
first of December. 

74. What is reported as his last thought about himself 
and his administration of affairs? 

Ans. It is reported that Alexander was heard to say: 
" And yet men may say of me what they please. I have 
lived and will die a republican." 

75. What was the effect on Russia of Alexander's 
later policies? 

Ans. Alexander's later reactionary policy caused bitter 
disappointment among the liberals in Russia, and. the 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 31 

number was large because the armies that had helped to 
crush Napoleon came back with many new and liberal 
ideas gathered from what they had seen and experienced. 

76i Who succeeded Alexander of Russia in 1825? 

Ans. Alexander I of Russia was succeeded by his 
brother, Nicholas I, who reigned for thirty years (1825-55), 
and proved to be "a terrible incarnation of autocracy." 
He continued the later policy of his brother and strove 
to shut out from Russia all the liberalizing influences of 
western Europe. Education was discouraged. Criticism 
of the government in a newspaper was instantly and 
severely punished. Everything had to conform to the 
absolute pleasure of an honest, but narrow and obstinate 
man. Culture and progress were distasteful to him and 
he stopped the extension of railroads. 

77. What was the general feeling which prevailed in 
Russia during the second quarter of the nineteenth cen- 
tury under Nicholas I? 

Ans. For forty years after the fall of Napoleon, Russia 
looked on herself as the foremost power in Europe and 
was, moreover, generally so regarded. The Russians, 
exalted by their great success, held in contempt the in- 
stitutions and customs of the neighboring nations and 
shared their aging emperor's narrow conceit. They 
entered into wars with other powers with a conviction that 
the army and the emperor were invincible. 

78. What was the first war in which Nicholas engaged? 

Ans. In 1828, Nicholas, taking advantage of the stub- 
born insurrection in Greece, known as the War of Grecian 
Independence, declared war on Turkey and Persia, passed 
the Balkans and was on the high road to Constantinople, 
Russia's long-coveted goal, when his advance was stopped 
by the jealous interference of England and Austria, by 
whose mediation the war was closed by the Peace of 
Adrianople, 1829. 

79. What was the loss or gain to Russia by[the|Peace 
of Adrianople? 

Ans. Nicholas restored all his conquests in Europe, 
but held some provinces in Asia which gave him control 



32 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

of the eastern shore of the Black Sea. Greece was liberated 
and Serbia became virtually independent. So Turkey- 
lost and Russia gained. 

80. Did Poland secure the constitution promised her 
by Alexander at the Congress of Vienna? 

Ans. The Congress of Vienna, after the fall of Napoleon 
in 1815, had re-established Poland as a constitutional 
kingdom dependent on Russia. But the tsar's rule was 
tyrannical and, in the general uprisings throughout Europe 
in 1830, the Poles rose in revolt and drove out the Russian 
garrisons. They were soon overcome, however, by the 
armies of the tsar, their constitution taken away and 
Poland made a province of Russia in 1832. Multitudes 
were banished to Siberia and thousands fled to England, 
America and elsewhere. No country has suffered more 
than Poland in the struggle for freedom. 

81. Is there any other side to the picture of Poland's 
woe and sufferings at the hands of Russia? 

Ans. There is no sufficient justification for the severity 
and repression that Russia has exercised on Poland, but 
the historian who tries to balance the fate of nations 
in the long flight of centuries is forced to remember that 
for six centuries Poland had once been the stronger of 
the two countries, and had waged continual warfare on the 
weaker Russians. Also that, at the time of the dismem- 
berment of Poland, the people were in a state of degrada- 
tion. They were indolent, ignorant, poor and improvident 
and, according to later English consular reports, there 
soon followed great progress in commerce, agriculture and 
manufactures. 

82. What further extension of territory was made by 
Nicholas I (1825-55)? 

Ans. In 1847, Nicholas I began his great eastern drive 
into central Asia. England had just secured the Punjab, 
and Russia feared English control of the commerce of 
Khiva, Bokhara and the valley of the Jaxartes. Russia 
placed a fleet of warships on the Sea of Aral . She advanced 
steadily, though the exhaustion of the Crimean War 
induced a pause for a few years, and in 1864, Prince 
Gortschakorf explained to the world that these Asiatic 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 33 

conquests had been forced on Russia by "an imperious 
necessity," but had reached their limit; nevertheless, the 
career of appropriation continued and Khiva was reduced 
to vassalage and Bokhara threatened. 

83. How much change was wrought in Russia's bound- 
aries by the progress of the half century after Napoleon's 
fall? 

Ans. Since her career of acquisition began, Russia 
has carried her frontier eight hundred miles westward 
into Europe. She has advanced four hundred, and fifty 
miles nearer to the Mediterranean and three hundred 
miles nearer the capital of Sweden. In Asia her southeast 
movement has brought her outposts a thousand miles 
nearer India and within three hundred miles of territory 
protected by the British flag. Her direct eastern advance 
has carried her to the Pacific and was bending toward 
Corea when stopped by Japan. 

84. What was the cause of the Crimean War of 1853? 

Ans. Nicholas I, the author of the phrase, " the sick 
man of Europe," referring to the Turkish power, proposed 
to divide, as monarchs do, the sick man's estate. England 
should have Egypt and Crete, while Russia would take 
under her protection the Turkish provinces of Europe, 
which meant ultimate absorption. A quarrel between 
Greek and Latin Christians at Jerusalem about the holy 
places was the pretext for trouble. Nicholas demanded 
the admission and recognition of a Russian protectorate 
over all Greek Christians in the sultan's dominions. The 
S-iltan refused and called for help. 

85. What were the principal features of the Crimean 
War? 

Ans. The name Crimean is given to the war because 
most of the fighting took place in the Russian Crimea, a 
peninsula jutting from southern Russia into the Black 
Sea. England and France responded to Turkey's call for 
help and Sardinia joined them later. England rejected 
Russia's offer of Egypt and Crete and fought to keep 
Russia from gaining Constantinople and an entrance to 
the Alediterranean, which would threaten England's 
route to the east. The French fought to avenge Moscow 
and to make the " Little Napoleon " seem like his great 



34 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

uncle. Sebastopol, Russia's great naval and military 
depot in the Crimea, the key to the Black Sea, was stormed 
by one hundred and seventy-five thousand allies and taken 
in a year. The Treaty of Paris followed (1856). 

86. What were the terms of peace in 1856, after the 
Crimean War? 

Ans. The aim of the peace on the part of the allies 
was to bolster up the "sick man of Europe," Turkey, and 
restrain the ambition of the tsar. Sebastopol was restored 
to Russia, but the latter was obliged to give up some 
territory at the mouth of the Danube whereby the Russian 
boundary was pushed back from that river. Russia was 
required to give up all idea of a protectorate over any 
Turkish subjects and to agree not to raise any more fort- 
resses on the shores of the Black Sea or to keep any 
armed ships on its waters except what might be needed 
for police service. The Christian population of the sultan 
was placed under the care of the great powers. 

87. What woman gained a world-wide fame during the 
Crimean War? 

Ans. Florence Nightingale, daughter of a wealthy 
English banker, born in Florence, Italy, and trained in 
German and French institutions, offered in 1854, on the 
outbreak of the Crimean War, to go and organize a nurs- 
ing department at Scutari, Italy. She took thirty-four 
nurses with her and managed her department with au- 
tocratic power but, absolute devotion to the sufferers. 
At the close of the war, $240,000 were subscribed as a 
fund to enable her to found an institution for training 
nurses. She died in 1910 at the age of ninety. 

88. What American gained great esteem with the Sultan 
of Turkey in the Crimean War? 

Ans. Cyrus Hamlin, brother of Vice-President Hannibal 
Hamlin and founder of Roberts College, Constantinople, 
set up bakeries that baked five thousand loaves of bread 
a day for the Turkish army. His Yankee wit gained him 
the favor of the sultan and many consequent concessions 
in his missionary enterprises. 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 35 

89. What change of rulers took place in Russia during 
the Crimean War? 

Ans. Nicholas I, a stern, despotic, reactionary ruler, 
who had, nevertheless, greatly extended the bounds of his 
domain, died in the early months of the Crimean War, 
1855, and was succeeded by his son, Alexander II, 1855-81. 

90. What was the character and what were the policies 
of Alexander II? 

Ans. Alexander II was a very different man from his 
father and his policies differed greatly from those of the 
previous thirty years. Forty-eight million peasants were 
in bondage in 1855 when Alexander II came to the throne, 
bought and sold with the properties in which they labored. 
In six years, or on February 19, 1861, less than two years 
before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, they were 
freed. 

91. Had serfdom always existed in Russia? 

Ans. Serfdom in Russia was of comparatively recent 
origin, having begun to die out in the west of Europe 
before it was legalized in Russia near the close of the six- 
teenth century. 

92. How did serfdom happen to be imposed in Russia 
when it was ceasing elsewhere? 

Ans. The Tartar blood in the Russian peasant impelled 
him to roam, to the neglect of agriculture. The fixing of 
the peasant to one locality was the main purpose. Even 
after emancipation the peasant was not allowed to go 
from home without permission of the elder, the chief whom 
the villagers elect. 

93. Was there much opposition to the emancipation 
of the serfs in Russia? 

Ans. The abolition had been long contemplated. Both 
Catherine II and her grandson Alexander I had considered 
it, but the wars in which they spent their days forbade 
it. Nicholas appointed a secret commission early in his 
reign to discuss it, but the Polish Insurrection of 1830 
interfered. Another fruitless attempt was made in 1836. 
A third committee was appointed in 1838, but a bad har- 
vest discouraged action. It was said that Nicholas, 
dying, bequeathed the task to his son, so action was 



36 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

generally expected when Alexander ascended the throne 
in 1855. Still many of the nobles were reluctant, but, after 
three years' discussion, adjustment and revision by a com- 
mittee chosen from the proprietors, the decree was pro- 
mulgated. 

94. What was the condition of the Russian serf at the 
time of emancipation? 

Ans. More than half of the 48,000,000 serfs were called 
crown peasants and belonged to the crown. Their servi- 
tude consisted in little more than the payment of a light 
rent, but the serfs belonging to individuals were more like 
slaves. They could be sold with the estate, though not 
individually; and they could be flogged by their owners 
when disobedient. 

95. What were the effects of emancipation on the 
Russians? 

Ans. The villagers remained in possession of the lands 
which they had heretofore occupied, but became bound 
to pay a purchase price or a sufficient equivalent in rent or 
labor. The lands thus acquired are not owned by indi- 
viduals, but by the community. The land system of the 
greater part of Russia is a system of communism. The 
industrious villager is the co-obligant of the idle and vicious 
and this weakens the motive which impels a man to work. 
Drunkenness has increased and it is believed that over 
much of the country agricultural products are diminish- 
ing. Instead of excluding all western ideas Alexander II 
favored them. The newspaper press was enlarged; seventy 
new journals were founded in St. Petersburg and Moscow 
alone within a year or two. The demand for political 
discussions was urgent and the censors were mild. The 
Russian people were ignorant of the recent political revo- 
lutions, the great progress in science and art in western 
Europe, and educated Russians were eager to become 
informed and journalists supplied the information. An 
enfranchised press called loudly for common education, 
for participation in political power and other reforms. 

96. When did Russia celebrate her millennium? 

Ans. In 1862, Russia had completed a thousand years 
of national existence and the anniversary, occurring at a 
time when liberal tendencies and hopes were dominant, was 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 37 

a joyous one. Some demanded complete religious liberty, 
others expected a free press, others looked for constitu- 
tional government of a democratic character. In lands 
where men are free their hopes are fulfilled. In Russia 
the wide-spread desires of the people were calmly dis- 
regarded by the little knot of men who had the preroga- 
tive to give or to withhold. 

97. What were the principal reforms that Alexander 
granted in Russia's millennium in 1862? 

Ans. Before that date all judicial proceedings were 
secret and the administration of justice was extremely 
corrupt. A favorable verdict could generally be secured 
by purchase. Appeals were so numerous that a wealthy 
litigant could avert any disagreeable verdict. The emperor 
changed this. Competent judges were to be appointed by 
the state; all. judicial proceedings were to be public; trial 
by jury in criminal cases was established and the right 
of appeal limited. The new tribunals soon gained the 
confidence of the people. 

98. What other reforms should be mentioned? 

Ans. Before the millennium of 1862, there had been no 
shadow of self-government in Russia, but at that date a 
system of district and provincial assemblies was organized. 
The district assembly elected certain of their own members 
to form the provincial assembly. Flogging in the army 
was abolished. Some toleration in the church was granted. 

99. What checked this spirit of progress in Russia 
which started so auspiciously in the millennium year, 1862? 

Ans. It was interrupted by the Polish Revolution of 
1863. Ardor in the cause of reform then subsided. 

100. What were the further effects on Russia of the 
Polish Revolution of 1863? 

Ans. The Liberal party of Russia, with which Alexander 
had been in accord, favored the discontented Poles, but 
the reactionary party at once rallied in great strength to 
maintain an unimpaired national dignity and unity. The 
Poles were ruthlessly suppressed, liberalism discredited and 
the emperor, as had occurred before in Russian history, was 
changed into a persistent reactionary. In 1868 the last 



38 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

relics of Polish independence disappeared in the thorough 
incorporation of Poland with the Russian empire. 

101. What other events are notable during the reign 
of Alexander II? 

Ans. The subjugation of the Caucasus was completed 
in 1859 and supremacy established over all the states of 
Turkestan. In 1874 compulsory military service for all 
Russians was introduced. In 1876 the administration of 
the Baltic provinces was merged in that of the central 
government, but the autonomy of Finland was respected 
and even extended. The main event in the latter part of 
Alexander's reign was the Russo-Turkish War in 1877. 

102. What caused the war between Russia and Turkey 
in 1877? 

Ans. Notwithstanding the efforts in the Peace of Paris 
after the Crimean War for the permanent settlement of 
the eastern question, barely two years passed before 
difficulties arose. Turkey would not or could not protect 
its Christian subjects as it had solemnly promised to do 
in the treaty. The Moslem hatred of the Christian con- 
stantly expressed itself in outrage and disturbance. In 
1860 a great many Syrian Christians were massacred by 
Druses and Turks and in 1876 the extremely revolting 
" Bulgarian atrocities " occurred, which spared neither 
man, woman nor child. 

103. What was the character and extent of the Russo- 
Turkish War of 1877? 

Ans. The Russian armies were set in motion to avenge 
the Bulgarian atrocities and protect Christian subjects of 
the sultan. Kars in Asia Minor and Plevna in European 
Turkey were captured and the army of the tsar was press- 
ing toward Constantinople when, as in 1829, England 
with her ironclads on the Bosphorus interfered in " the sick 
man's" behalf. 

104. What was the result of British interference in the 
progress of Russian arms against Turkey in 1877? 

Ans. An armistice was signed in January, 1878; a 
treaty was concluded in March, and diplomatic difficulties 
which threatened war between Russia and England were 
adjusted in the celebrated Congress of Berlin, which met 
in June, 1878. 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 39 

105. Who composed the famous Congress of Berlin in 
1878? 

Ans. The Congress of Berlin, 1878, is noted in the 
first place for the brilliant diplomatic powers of the men 
that composed it. As may be seen in the well-known 
picture of the Congress, Gortschakoff represented Russia, 
Bismarck Germany, and Disraeli England, the latter 
being generally credited with playing the deepest and 
most clever game. 

106. What were the decisions of the Congress of Berlin? 

Ans. The Congress sanctioned the readjustment of the 
Ottoman Empire, the cession to Russia of Bessarabia, 
which had been given to Moldavia in 1856, and also the 
ports of Batum, of Kars and of Ardahan. The absolute 
independence of Roumania, Serbia and Montenegro was 
formally acknowledged; Bulgaria, north of the Balkans, 
was to enjoy self-government but to pay tribute to the 
Porte. Eastern Roumelia was to have a Christian governor 
but remain subject to the sultan. Bosnia and Herzegovina 
were made subject to the Austro- Hungarian government. 
Some portions of Armenia were given to Russia. 

107. How might the decisions of the Congress of Berlin 
be summarized? 

Ans. In a word, Russia now recovered everything she 
lost in the Crimean struggle, while Turkey lost half her 
European subjects, barely five million being left her, and 
half of these Christians liable to be lost in the next clash. 
It is generally credited to Disraeli and England that the 
dismemberment of Turkey and the emancipation of all 
Christian communities under Turkish rule was not more 
complete. 

108. After Russia's partial success in the war of 1877 
with Turkey what marked the closing years of Alexan- 
der II? 

Ans. The change in Alexander IPs policies after the 
Polish Revolution of 1862 led to a growth of discontent 
which developed into " Nihilism," and the stern repres- 
sive measures taken by the government to suppress this 
led to many assassinations, ending in that of the emperor 
himself, March 13, 1881. 



40 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

109. What is Nihilism? 

Ans. Nihilism is a smothered French Revolution, or the 
manifestation of liberalism under a despotic autocracy. 
Russia was an absolute monarchy, the tsar having the 
power of all three great departments of government, legis- 
lative, judicial and executive. This condition is perhaps 
quickest shown by the fact that in 1879 and 1880 sixty 
thousand persons were sent into exile in Siberia without 
trial. Extreme nihilists have defended assassination as a 
necessary and righteous means of reform under such con- 
ditions. 

110. What is the popular source of information on the 
exile system of Russia? 

Ans. A book by Geo-ge Kennan entitled " Siberia and 
the Exile System," first published in the Century Maga- 
zine 1888-89. 

111. Who succeeded Alexander II, and what policy did 
he pursue? 

Ans. The son of the murdered tsar ascended the throne 
in 1881, as Alexander III, and immediately instituted a 
still more sternly repressive system than that pursued by 
his father, apparently believing that Russia was demoral- 
ized by the over-liberal policy of his father's earlier years. 

112. What are some of the ways in which Alexander 
III endeavored to hold Russia down? 

Ans. A rigid censorship of the press was established; 
the works of Huxley, Spencer, Agassiz, Lyell and Adam 
Smith were forbidden and all liberal and progressive ideas, 
political, religious and scientific, were barred. 

113. What is known about Alexander Ill's reign 
(1881 to 1894?) 

Ans. Fear of assassination delayed the coronation till 
1883. The subjugation of the Turkomans in Central Asia 
was completed but led to some danger of hostilities with 
Britain as to the frontier between Russian territories and 
Afghanistan. Alexander broke away from the old triple 
alliance with Germany and Austria and developed friendly 
relations with France. 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 41 

114. What was Alexander Ill's home policy? 

Ans. His home policy was reactionary. The liberties of 
the Baltic provinces and of Finland were curtailed, the 
Jews were oppressed and the power of the old Russian 
orthodoxy was strengthened. • 

115. When did the late Emperor Nicholas II come to 
the throne of Russia and what were his policies? 

Ans. Nicholas II's reign began on the death of his 
father, Alexander III, in 1894. He continued the alli- 
ance with France and also made one with England which 
Edward VII, desired and prepared. After the war be- 
tween Japan and China, Russia secured Manchuria as a 
province and Port Arthur became a Russian port. This 
soon led to a war with Japan. 

116. What provoked the Russo-Japanese War? 

Ans. Collision of interests in Manchuria and Korea 
provoked the war. Russia seemed to Japan to be approach- 
ing too nearly opposite her shores and after fruitless ne- 
gotiations for over a year Japan struck a sudden blow, 
destroying a couple of Russian warships without first 
declaring war. This was in 1904. 

117. What was the general character of the Russo- 
Japanese War and what were the most marked conflicts? 

Ans. Numerous bloody engagements ensued in which 
the Russians were disastrously defeated. The battle be- 
fore Mukden, the capture of Port Arthur, and the defeat 
of the Russian fleet in the Sea of Japan by Admiral Togo 
were the most notable events. The siege of Port Arthur, 
a place deemed impregnable, occupied eight months. 

118. When and where was peace concluded in the 
Russo-Japanese War? 

. Ans. Peace was concluded at Portsmouth, New Hamp- 
shire, September 5, 1905. President Roosevelt took an 
active part in bringing this conference about and was 
awarded the Nobel prize of $50,000 as the one person of 
all the world who had done the most for the interests of 
peace that year. 

119. What may be considered the most important event 
in the reign of Nicholas II? 

Ans. The granting of a constitution on August 19^ 



42 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

1905, when the first step toward a representative govern- 
ment was made in the creation of an elective body of 
representatives called the Duma. While only given con- 
sultative power on its creation a new law was promul- 
gated in October of the same year, conferring some legis- 
lative powers upon the Duma, and at the same time freedom 
of conscience, speech, assembly, and association, together 
with inviolability of the person, were promulgated by 
the emperor and an unalterable law was established that 
no law should be effective without the approval of the 
Duma and the Council of the Empire, the latter being an 
advisory body established in 1810 and transformed into 
a legislative council on March 5, 1906. 

120. How and when was the friction between Russia 
and Britain allayed? 

Ans. In 1907 by the Anglo-Russian convention the two 
countries came to an understanding as to Afghanistan and 
Tibet, and denned their spheres of influence, constituting 
also a neutral zone in Persia. 

121. What later arrangement was made with Japan by 
Russia? 

Ans. In 1910 a Russo-Japanese convention was signed, 
which guaranteed the maintenance of the status quo in 
Manchuria. Russia, England and Japan seem now to 
have a clear understanding as to their relative interests 
in Asia. 

122. What agreement Was made with Germany by 
Russia? 

Ans. In 1911 a Russo-German agreement was published 
respecting concessions in Persia. 

123. What act offensive to Finland occurred? 

Ans. In 1911 Russia annexed a province of Finland 
lying near St. Petersburg, comprising about six hundred 
square miles and thirty-one thousand people. This the 
Finns strongly resented, 

124. What is generally understood in America to be 
the Russian reason for participation in the present war? 

Ans. War was started by S erbia's refusal to accept in full 
the ultimatum of Austria, and Russia is supposed to have 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA 43 

acted in behalf of Serbia as defending a small Slav state 
crowded by a big Teutonic bully. Of course, Germany 
and Russia charge each other with first taking the 
offensive. 

125. What are Russia's chief assets for the war? 

Ans. Her well-nigh inexhaustible number of soldiers, 
their patience under defeat and the topographical diffi- 
culties encountered by foes in invading her territory. 

126. What is Panslavism? 

Ans. Panslavism is a movement with the aim of draw- 
ing closer, together all the various races of Slavonic stock 
and combining their influence in political and other direc- 
tions. Its first literary propagandist was the Slovak 
poet Kollar and the movement showed first in Bohemia. 
The Poles of Prussia resisted Germanization; Serbs, 
Slovaks and Croats asserted their rights against their 
Magyar masters; and the still more unfortunate Slavs of 
Turkey joined the movement. 

127. What drawbacks checked the movement toward 
Panslavism? 

Ans. At the first great Panslavic congress, held at 
Prague in 1848, the most convenient medium of inter- 
course proved to be the alien German tongue. Russia, 
after being called to suppress the Hungarian revolution, 
came to be regarded as the protector of all the Slavs, and 
the growing dominance of Russia led the Poles to •with- 
draw support, and even the Czechs began to fear that 
Panslavism under Russian guidance was more like Pan- 
russism. 

128. Have there been any later Panslavic movements 
since those of the forties? 

Ans. The Austrian Slavs felt themselves put into the 
background by the new constitution of the Austrian- 
Hungarian monarchy in 1867, and the war in the Balkan 
peninsula in 1875-76 was doubtless due to Panslavist 
intrigue as well as to Christian grievances. 

129. What religious difficulty somewhat handicaps 
Panslavism? 

Ans. While Russia and some other Slavic territories 
adhere to the Greek Catholic church, having been con- 



44 HISTORY OP RUSSIA 

verted by missionaries from Constantinople, the more 
western Slavs belong more frequently to the Roman 
Catholic church, having been converted by missionaries 
sent from Rome. This fact tends toward separation 
rather than strong union. 

130. What is the meaning and origin of the word 
"Nihilism"? 

Ans. Nihilism, from the Latin word meaning 
" nothing " or negation, is a term used to signify certain 
negative systems of philosophy. It is often regarded 
and used as synonymous with anarchism, but is better 
confined to the manifestations of social and political 
revolutionaries in Russia. It was first introduced by 
Turgenef in his " Fathers and Sons," 1862. Two gifted 
expounders of its teachings were the art critic Dobroluboff 
(1836-61), and the political writer Pisareff,who died in 1872. 

131. What has been the development of the doctrines 
of Nihilism? 

Ans. Nihilism has created a bulky literature, especially 
in the form of novels, has exercised a deep influence on 
the life of the educated classes in Russia and produced a 
current in Russian literature and art which makes a wide 
divergence from the literature and art of western Europe. 
The ideas of Nihilism have contributed to a deep-seated 
movement in favor of the higher education of Russian 
women. 

132. What were the outward manifestations of Nihilism 
as distinguished from the literary? 

Ans. In 1861 proclamations appealing to the peasantry 
to revolt were issued and two secret societies, " The 
Great Russian " and " Land and Liberty," were organized. 
In the same year several leaders of the movement, includ- 
ing the poet Mikhailoff, were exiled to hard labor in Si- 
beria. In 1863, when after the Polish Insurrection, the 
old party took the upper hand in the Winter Palace new 
revolutionary circles appeared and led to a peasant out- 
break in 1864 and an attempt on the life of the tsar was 
made. 

133. What were some later movements of Nihilism 
since the sixties? 

Ans. Under the influence of a powerful agitator, 
Michael Bakunin, the ideas of the International Working- 



HISTORY OF RUSSIA - 45 

men's Asociation spread rapidly. Young men and 
women of rich families left their homes and became 
workers in factories, schoolmasters in villages, medical 
helpers, midwives, etc., either to share privation or to 
incite revolution. More than 2000 were arrested between 
1873 and 1876 and imprisoned for • years. Many were 
acquitted by the supreme court in the 193 cases which 
reached it, but even then they were exiled. 

134. What and when may be considered to be the cul- 
mination of Nihilism or Russia's Reign of Terror? 

Ans. In the early part of 1878 a prisoner in Petrograd 
was flogged, knouted, by the prefect of police, General 
Trepoff, and a woman, Vera Zasulitch, attempted the 
general's death. A long duel ensued between the relent- 
less cruelty of the police and the skill and cunning of the 
Nihilists. It ended in the murder of Alexander II, March 
13, 1881, who was killed by bombs on the morning of the 
very day he had signed the convocation of the Assembly 
• of Notables. 

135. Did the overt acts of Nihilism continue after the 
murder of Alexander in 1881? 

Ans. Russia's Reign of Terror was at its height from 
1878 to 1882, during which period many high officials 
were assassinated, the chief of police at Petrograd, the 
governor of Kharkoff, the rector of Kiev University and 
many other officials of subordinate rank. Desperate 
attempts on the tsar's life preceded the fatal effort and, 
although the reign of crime subsided somewhat with his 
death, the efforts of Nihilism still continued many years. 
The Grand Duke Sergius was killed in broad daylight on 
the streets of Moscow in 1905. 

136. What are the later aims of Nihilism and how is it 
to be regarded? 

Ans. Nihilism works for freedom of the press and of 
speech, local self-government for the towns, religious 
equality, a democratic and permanent parliament and the 
land for the people. It differs from anarchism in that its 
aim is constitutional government, however extreme the 
means of securing it. 

137. What is the Russian Duma? 

Ans. As a result of the continued agitation and out- 
rages, the Tsar Nicholas II issued a ukase in the fall of 



46 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

1905, the year of the assassination of Grand Duke Sergius, 
promising a constitution based on the principles of modern 
Liberalism. In April, 1906, the first Duma, or council, 
was solemnly opened by the tsar, but dissolved by him 
in July because it demanded an appeal to the people. The 
second Duma assembled in Petrograd in March, 1907; 
it was less democratic than the first but was dismissed in 
June. 

138. What headway has the Duma made since the early 
dismissal of the first two meetings? 

Ans. The third Duma of 1907 was as conservative as 
the first two were democratic. Before adjourning on 
October 28, 1908, after nearly a year's session, it had 
passed many salutary measures. In 1909 it clashed with 
the government and in 1911 the action of the premier, M. 
Stolypin, in overriding the council, by advising an exercise 
of the imperial prerogative, roused great protests among 
the Constitutionists who had supported him up to that 
point. 

139. What is the last great word in Russian History? 

Ans. That, apparently, the Duma of 1917 has taken the 
initiative in overthrowing the monarchy and establishing 
a republic. 

140. What are the main ideas of Russia brought home 
to one in reviewing Russian history? 

Ans. Russia seems like a great, slumbering giant, only 
half conscious of its strength and perhaps less than half 
able to use its strength promptly and efficiently. Its 
rulers as a whole seem to have meant to do well but to 
have been swayed backward and forward in repressive and 
in liberal methods and failed, mainly, in both. It would 
appear, however, that there is boundless genius and ability 
in the nation when thoroughly awakened and freed, and 
it seems that such developments are already resulting 
from the present war. 

141. What was Russia's reason for entering the great 
war? 

Ans. Russia notified Austria- Hungary that the day 
that war was declared on Serbia by Austria-Hungary, 
Russia would mobilize her troops. This mobilization led 
Germany to declare war on Russia. 




\\ NtSH\ 







48 HISTORY OF RUSSIA 

142. Why did Russia champion Serbia's cause? 

Ans. Since the fifteenth century, when Turkey cap 
tured Constantinople (1453) and the territory known as 
the Balkan States, attempts have been made by Austria- 
Hungary and Russia to reconquer the territory. In the 
war of 1877, Russia by defeating Turkey secured a large 
tract of territory for herself and, in addition, the inde- 
pendence of Serbia, Roumania and Montenegro, as well as 
the autonomy of Bulgaria, though still left tributary to 
Turkey. 

143. What was Russia's object in entering the war with 
Turkey in 1877? 

Ans. Nominally the protection of the members of the 
Greek Church, who were being ill-treated and massacred. 
Russia demanded a protectorate over all the Christians 
belonging to the Greek Church in Turkey. The claim 
was not acknowledged by Turkey. 

144. What was a stronger reason than the one given for 
Russia's action? 

Ans. Russia's desire to control the Dardanelles, for 
which she has already waged nine wars. In 1833, by the 
treaty at the palace of Unkiar Skelissi, Turkey virtually 
conceded control to Russia and agreed to close the straits 
to warships of all other countries in case Russia should be 
at war. As soon as England and France learned of the 
arrangement they objected and Russia renounced her 
pretensions. At the present time, Russia is reported to 
be endeavoring to arrange peace terms with Turkey on 
this same basis. 

145. What, then, seems to be the underlying cause of 
the great war? 

Ans. The contention between Austria-Hungary and 
Russia to control the balance of power in the Balkan 
States. The mighty struggle between two past masters 
in the art of conquering by force and absorbing their 
weaker neighbors. A greed for territorial expansion by 
two nations that have not shown themselves capable of 
governing, for the happiness and prosperity of their 
people, the territory already in their possessions. jp* ■ 



